Whoa! Big fire in Yosemite/El Portal!

[Preston]

Here's the latest from InciWeb on the El Portal fire.

There is also a big fire on the west side of the Sierra in the San Joaquin River drainage. The French fire is 8,200 Ac. and is only 15% contained. The fire is just north of last year's Aspen fire.

--P

[Drew Wiley]

Oh gosh. That's the canyon view from my old place, looking upriver toward Mammoth Pool then the Minarets and Mt Ritter on the horizon. No way they can fight
fire in that canyon itself. But hopefully they can stop it as it before it gets onto the shoulder of Kaiser. That second largest uncut Ponderosa pine forest in the
world is up on that bench (maybe now the largest, since so much of Arizona's Coccocino has recently itself burned). There is access there via the Stump Springs
road, none down in the canyon itself. ... I've pretty much given up on the idea of backpacking the Sierra this summer. Just too much risk of being smoked out
somewhere on a long trip. Headed for the Wind Rivers, where it's been mostly wet... hopefully not too wet in Sept. At least the bugs will be gone.

[John Kasaian]

A friend and I were planning to pack across the French Trail over to Mammoth this summer. Yikes!

[ericpmoss]

Apparently it was started by an illegal campfire -- I saw the photo of the scene. Idiots. I hope it rains soon -- I'll be hiking alone north-to-south and can barely find my butt with both hands. Something like this has me pretty nervous.

[John Kasaian]

At San Joaquin River Trail Committee meetings they used to joke that there were so many plantations on drip irrigation it would be difficult for a fire to get started up there

[Drew Wiley]

That river trail barely got started. I doubt that any pot growers are going to be fooling around in that hot steep canyon. They're mostly up there around North Fork and through the Mother Lode north into Mariposa and Tuloumne Counties. A lot of the drugs get flow into rural airstrips. Meth labs are a huge fire danger in those parts. And there are a lot of them. But this past weekend my nephew and a long-time climbing friend took my grand-nephew for his 11th birthday up Half Dome (climbing that is, not via the cable trail). The air was breathable but hazy. But to get away from that afterwards they camped up around Tenaya or Tioga somewhere, where the Yogi bear types were steady pests, just like in the old days, I guess. Thought the park has a little better handle on the bears by now. But I never camp there, so wouldn't know.